A North Texas community forged ahead in a massive cleanup, and the search for the missing continued Friday from 16 tornadoes that ripped through the area. That search for seven people still missing is still active, a local sheriff said. "We're going to keep on looking," Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds said Thursday. "We're not going to give up until every piece of debris is turned over." The seven-hour onslaught of twisters, 16 confirmed so far according to the National Weather Service, battered the area Wednesday, turning neighborhoods into rubble and leaving six people dead.

Investigators have not ruled out an intentional fire being behind explosions at a fertilizer plant in the small town of West that left 15 people dead, the Texas fire marshal said Thursday. State Fire Marshal Chris Connealy said investigators were unable to rule out three possible causes, including a spark from a golf cart, an electrical short or an intentionally set fire. "The cause cannot be proven to an acceptable level," Connealy told reporters.

A suicide car bomber targeted a convoy of coalition forces in the Afghanistan capital on Thursday morning, killing six civilians, the interior ministry said. The fatalities included two children and an additional 30 people wounded, said Sediq Seddiqi, a spokesman for the ministry. Maj. Bryan Woods, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the attack. He declined to release the number of casualties, saying he wanted more time. An investigation is under way, both by the coalition forces and the Afghan officials, Woods said. Insurgent group Hezbe Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claimed responsibility for the attack.

Possible tornadoes ripped through north Texas on Wednesday night, killing at least six people and injuring more than 100 others, officials said. The fatalities occurred when the storm struck a Habitat for Humanity neighborhood in the Granbury area, Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds said. There were about 120 homes in the neighborhood and most of them were destroyed. Fourteen people still missing and the death toll could rise, according to Deeds. About 100 people were injured, said Matt Zavadsky, a spokesman for MedStar Mobile Healthcare.

Several Syrian rockets landed early Wednesday in the Mount Hermon area of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, on the border with Syria, the Israeli military said. "Initial reports indicate that the rockets are a result of (the) domestic situation in Syria," a spokeswoman for the Israel Defense Forces said. "As a result the Hermon side of the mountain will be temporarily closed for visitors." The Israel Defense Forces has been in touch with the U.N. force stationed between the two countries, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, over the incident, it said.

Thirteen out of 14 Boston deputy fire chiefs have signed a letter of "no confidence" in Fire Chief Steve Abraira's handling of the Boston Marathon bombings, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN Tuesday night. The exact content of the letter is unclear, but was sent to Mayor Thomas Menino's office in April, according to the source. The twin blasts at the end of the Boston Marathon on April 15 killed three and wounded more than 260 others.

A Philadelphia abortion provider who killed babies by cutting their spinal cords with scissors was found guilty of first-degree murder on Monday. The conviction on three counts of first-degree murder means Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, could be sentenced to death. Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore sobbed after the verdict in the high-profile case was announced. Gosnell appeared shocked. He let out a sigh and shook his head back and forth. Defense attorney Jack McMahon told CNN it's too soon to tell whether he will appeal the conviction.

Minnesota is expected to join eleven states and the District of Columbia in legalizing same-sex marriage after the state Senate on Monday voted 37-30 in favor of approving it. Gov. Mark Dayton has said he would sign the bill. After the vote, he posted online, "Join us tomorrow as we make history on the Capitol steps." The bill follows a failed attempt last year to define marriage as between one man and one woman with an amendment to the state constitution. The state House approved the measure last Thursday.

Ariel Castro's brothers no longer refer to him as kin. Instead, they call him "a monster" who should rot in jail after being accused of kidnapping and holding three young women hostage in his home for a decade. "I had nothing to do with this, and I don't know how my brother got away with it for so many years," Pedro Castro, 54, said when he and brother Onil Castro, 50, sat down for an exclusive interview with CNN's Martin Savidge this weekend. When the story first broke, the world saw all three brothers as suspects after Cleveland police arrested them last Monday and released their mugshots. It was not until Thursday that Pedro and Onil Castro were freed and investigators said the brothers had no involvement in the kidnappings.

ALSO SEE:CNN: As Ohio women remained in captivity, alleged abductor's life crumbled

First came the pain - a decade of torture, torment and terror for three captive women and one of their young daughters. Now comes the prosecution and - if there's a conviction - punishment for the man accused of being responsible for their hell. Ariel Castro appeared silently in court Thursday, his head down, as he was arraigned on four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape, accused of holding the women captive in his Cleveland home. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Lauren Moore ordered Castro held on $8 million bond - $2 million for each of the three women and the child born to Amanda Berry before they were freed Monday evening.

ALSO SEE: CNN: 'He is dead to me,' daughter of Ohio suspect says in CNN exclusive

Biden, who formerly served as chairman of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus while in the Senate, also took a moment to tease the friendly crowd about his presidential ambitions, joking that the press “likes to point out that I ran for president twice but I never made it.”

“I want you to know that in 2004, I made it,” Biden said. “I’m a president emeritus of the Delaware Volunteer Fire Association. So I have made it to the presidency.”

As Ariel Castro prepares to make his first court appearance Thursday, accusations of what he did to three young women trapped in his home for a decade get more and more abhorrent. The man charged with kidnapping and rape allegedly forced one of the women to deliver another captive's baby, and threatened to kill if the baby did not survive, a police source familiar with the investigation said.

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators in the days after the attack that his brother's widow, Katherine Russell, was not involved in the plot, a federal law enforcement official said Wednesday. Russell, married to Tamerlan Tsarnaev who was killed in a confrontation with police three days after the bombings, has drawn the scrutiny of federal investigators, who have sought to question her more closely about contacts with her husband - including a telephone conversation between the two just hours after photographs of the Tsarnaev brothers were circulated as suspects by the FBI on April 18.

The first time most of America heard Amanda Berry's voice was on a frantic 911 call. "I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years," the 27-year-old woman said on the call, which was made on Monday. "And I'm here. I'm free now." A day later, Berry could be heard again. This time talking to relatives, she seemed positive, even upbeat - telling her grandmother Fern Gentry in Tennessee that she's "fine" and that the 6-year-old girl also rescued Monday from a Cleveland home is indeed her own.

ALSO SEE:CNN: Timeline: Three Cleveland girls go missing; no word of them for 10 years

WATCH: VIDEO – Kidnapping survivor Jaycee Dugard was honored by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Tuesday night.

Amanda Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland in 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday. Georgina "Gina" DeJesus disappeared nearly a year later, in April 2004. She was 14. Michele Knight vanished in 2002, at age 19, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. All three were found alive in a home in a Cleveland neighborhood Monday night, police announced in a development hailed as a miracle by their families.

One of three friends accused of helping Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cover up his alleged crime got out on bond Monday, released to his mother's custody. Robel Phillipos left the federal courthouse in a red Toyota sedan after a judge set bail at $100,000. He will stay at his mother's home, where he was living before his arrest last week, and be monitored electronically, according to terms his lawyers and prosecutors agreed to before Monday's hearing.FULL POST